5 Minutes with Mac Fleet

Fresh off an NCAA 1500m win, the Oregon senior-to-be talks about persevering through injuries.

When Mac Fleet sped to a 3:48.04 1500m win at the 2009 Pan Am Junior Championships, track fans in Eugene, Ore., could hardly contain their excitement. The San Diego native was poised to enter the University of Oregon that fall and appeared a shoe-in to bolster a resurgent men’s distance program. He did that and more, taking runner-up honors in the mile at the 2010 NCAA indoor championships after breaking Galen Rupp’s school record with a 3:57.70 at the University of Washington Husky Classic.

But during the 2010 outdoor season, an old high school foot injury returned and worsened, and Fleet underwent surgery that summer. After taking a redshirt during the 2010 cross country season, Fleet was encouraged by his 2011 indoor campaign but then fell victim to a severe case of plantar fasciitis. He sat out the 2011 outdoor season and didn’t run a single race during the 2011–2012 academic year.

Often discouraged but never giving up hope, Fleet and his Oregon coach, Andy Powell, gained optimism last fall when Fleet was able to gradually increase his mileage and regain fitness. The foot at long last cooperated, and this past indoor season Fleet returned to competition and advanced to nationals. Outdoors he put together a dominating season that culminated with the NCAA 1500m title on Oregon’s home track at Hayward Field. Running Times caught up with Fleet just after he returned from a sixth-place 1500m finish at the June 20–23 US outdoor championships in Des Moines.

Running Times: You’re fresh off a good showing at USAs, the 1500m being one of several slow races that finished extremely fast. What was your goal going into the meet, and were you satisfied?

Mac Fleet: The goal going in was to try to win or to make the team. We knew I was fit enough that if I was on, I could take a good crack at it. I met with my coach, Andy Powell, that morning and we came up with a strategy to try to win it in the last 100 meters. And I executed that pretty well, almost perfectly, but I just didn’t have it the last 80 meters. It was difficult watching world championships spots go by me at the end, but I’m pleased to know that I can run with those guys. Next time, given a little more time where I could change a couple things in training, hopefully I’ll have a bit more at the end.

RT: Did you feel pretty fresh in Des Moines or was there some residual fatigue from NCAAs and the collegiate outdoor season?

MF: No, not really. The NCAA season makes it difficult to train for USAs specifically, because the main goal is always going to be winning an NCAA title. So that inhibited maybe a little of the training we could have done. It’s been a long building process since September, building basically from nothing the past couple of years. So we’ve had to take things pretty slowly and one of the things we’ve had to get back to very gradually is my top-end speed. It’s the most difficult thing, because you don’t want to put your body through too much and you can’t step over the line too many times. Usually when you close a 1500 in 51-mid to 51-high (for the final 400m) you’re okay, you know you’ll be able to hold your position. But those guys all ran 51-low, and that was the difference. Centrowitz ran probably 51-flat, and I was 51.7 or 51.8, and the few guys who caught me were 51-low. And that’s just the difference that half a second makes. When that happens you wish you could go back and do a couple things differently in training, but in my scenario I couldn’t have done that.

RT: I understand that you determined early last fall that winning the 1500m at NCAAs was going to be your yearlong goal. Is that correct?

MF: Andy and I sat down during cross country camp the first week of September. We knew my foot was getting better and we talked about what I wanted to do for the year. And the ultimate goal was to take a real honest crack at trying to win the 1500 outdoors at Hayward. He could have taken a couple shortcuts to develop me quicker, and I could have had a better indoor season. But our big picture was outdoors. Indoors and cross country were really frustrating because I wasn’t in the shape I should have been in, because of having been hurt. But it was a real steady process and we knew ultimately that I would be in good shape for the outdoor season.

RT: At indoor nationals you failed to advance to the final, missing by five hundredths of a second. In addition to the frustration of coming so close, was missing the final any sort of blow to your confidence?

MF: Well, I wasn’t even qualified for indoors until the week before, when I a 3:58-high mile at the Last Chance meet at Notre Dame. And we thought I was a couple weeks away from cracking something big, a couple weeks behind where I wanted to be in relationship to the indoor season. So yeah, missing the final was tough, but it was a nice little sting and something that definitely made me work a little bit harder and a little bit smarter going towards the outdoor season.

RT: And then you ran an 800m PR of 1:48.70 in early April, in your opening race outdoors, followed by a 1500m PR of 3:40.21 a couple weeks later. I assume those two races erased any lingering doubts about your fitness.

MF: Yeah, but the best indication was the type of training I was doing: real high quality workouts and still running 80 miles a week. So to put those races on top of some really high quality training was impressive to me, and a great indicator for late season things.

RT: There at Oregon, with so many great athletes, are you training with different people every day or do you have a small group you usually run workouts with?

MF: It varies and everyone’s mileage is different. Most of the 1500m guys here, they’re lower mileage than I am. Then you also have someone like Jeramy Elkaim who’s also under 4:00 and has run 13:39 [for 5,000m] indoors, he’s a bit higher than I am. And I actually run a lot better when I run high mileage. When I get hurt is when I run low mileage stuff. It’s weird but that’s just how my body works. When I have to do strength workouts I’m with Parker Stinson or Elkaim or Matt Melancon, who made the 10K outdoors. And then for speed stuff I can work out with Elijah (Greer, 2013 NCAA indoor and outdoor champion at 800m) or Boru (Guyota), who’s a 1:47 guy. So I have a fantastic set-up, where depending on what I need I have people available to work out with, getting me through some of the harder things.

RT: You said you’ve been up around 80 miles a week this spring. Were you running even higher mileage during the fall or winter?

MF: As a miler you should always be able to run under 50 seconds for a quarter in a workout, you want to keep that pop in your legs. And obviously the higher the mileage, the harder it is to do that. While coming back from the injury my number has been around 80 miles a week where I can still run quality workouts and still get my strength work in. During cross country I think I hit a couple 90 miles weeks, and then all of indoors it was 80 to mid-80s. Obviously during outdoor season it creeps down just a little bit, but the week of NCAAs I think I still ran about 70 miles.

RT: What’s your plan for the summer? Are you going to be racing much, and are you going to Europe?

MF: Yeah. Andy wants me to race four times but I’m hoping to squeeze in a fifth race somewhere. The first is a 1500m on July 1 in Vancouver. Nate Brannen is in that and needs the standard, so I think that should be a decent race. And then there’s an 800 in Victoria on July 5 that’s shaping up to be a 1:45 race or so. After that I’ll head over to Belgium for Heusden on July 13 and I’m also racing in Italy the 16th, I believe. Those races in Europe are a little tentative because, you know, the faster I run on July 1 the better the meets I can get into in Europe. So I’ll be looking to take a decent crack at this first one because I feel I’m due for a real 1500m PR.

RT: I can’t imagine that the coming fall and cross country season are on your mind too much at this point, but tell me a little about how the season might shape up for you and the Oregon team.

MF: I expect to be a contributor. As a freshman here I was on our top seven all year and that’s when we placed second. Last fall we had a really young team and I think that showed, and the course in Kentucky wasn’t really suited for us because it was just so fast. The front of the field went out in 4:25 and it was hard to adapt to that. But yeah, we’ll have a good squad. Andy’s been developing our 10K guys for the long haul, for this upcoming cross country season, and I’ll be excited to get to cross country camp and get the mileage back up. And I’m in shape this year—I’m 30 pounds lighter than last year.